LaVista Hills supporter, critic respond to report on finances

A report published on Monday raised questions about whether the proposed city of LaVista Hills could run the surplus its supporters claimed.

The report suggested the city might run a deficit, and calling into question whether it can take in enough in tax money to provide services to its more than its more than 65,000 anticipated residents.

Mary Kay Woodworth with the LaVista Hills Alliance pushed back against an analysis conducted by Russell Carleton, a resident who lives in the proposed area of LaVista Hills. That analysis was reconstructed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which published its findings on Sept. 14. She questioned Carleton’s qualifications to conduct such a study.

The question arises from the millage rate the city would charge. The financial feasibility study, conducted by the Carl Vinson institute, assumes a millage rate of 7.64 mills for LaVista Hills. But the LaVista Hills enabling legislation caps the millage at 5 mills.

Woodworth said the city will still be able to run efficiently and run a surplus. Carleton provided additional details about how he came to his conclusions.

Here are Woodworth’s and Carleton’s unedited statements on the subject …

CVI has a long and proven history of being conservative in its methodology and, more importantly, being right. The “researcher” has a long and proven history of making ill-informed pronouncements about cityhood. Unfortunately, the writer at the AJC chose to present an errant viewpoint as fact.

The bottom line is this. Dunwoody’s CVI study (like those of the other new cities) was completed with the same basic methodology, which is that the then-current millage rate was assumed. In the case of Dunwoody, DeKalb was charging 3.04 mills in study year. Dunwoody has been operating on a gross 2.74 millage rate since incorporation in 2008, and generating millions in annual surpluses. The actual surplus enjoyed by every city that has undergone a CVI study has been greater than what the CVI had predicted; the statutory cap for LaVista Hills is nearly double that amount.

Two additional comments:

1) The CVI does not actually design a new city’s budget, but merely tests its feasibility at the margins of what is likely, intentionally choosing the lowest estimates for revenue and the highest estimates for expenses. City residents will ultimately decide whether the surplus will be used for tax relief, improved services, a rainy day fund, or some combination of those items;

2) The CVI compared LVH’s first-year expenditures with those of cities that provide levels of service substantially greater than those that our residents currently experience in DeKalb County.

Mr. Carleton is a technical writer in the psychology profession and baseball statistician who apparently believes that his background makes him more of an expert than the actual experts at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.

The anti-city crowd (much of the base of which lies outside of the LaVista Hills boundary) has been grasping at straws to try to thwart a strong, grassroots movement in our area. Their false claims have been well-documented on our Facebook page should you care to take a look.

It is unfortunate that this small group is doing whatever it can to make the vote go its way, facts be darned.

As far as the LVH Alliance website, the revised study was on a subpage that was set as draft, rather than published. An unintentional mistake that review of website missed.

– Mary Kay Woodworth

In May, I saw that the CVI had explicitly stated that they were basing all of their revenue estimates on the idea that the city could (and would) simply duplicate the county’s rates, including the then-current millage rate of 7.64 for the affected services. I started with the (incorrect) assumption that because the millage rate would have to be moved from 7.64 to 5.00 that this would mean that the projected property tax income listed in the CVI study needed to be adjusted downward with a simple ratio calculation (i.e., 5.00 is roughly 2/3rds of 7.64, so I could simply assume 2/3rds of the revenue.)

CVI pointed out that because of the differences in HOST and the homestead exemptions, you can’t directly compare the millages like that. And that’s true for residential properties which claim the homestead exemption. In those cases, it’s possible to charge a lower “sticker price” millage rate, but have it produce more revenue for the city (and a larger tax bill at the house level). In the spreadsheet, we see that despite the fact in a scenario where LaVista Hills charges a rate of 5.00, the amount collected from residential properties exceeds that which was collected by the county at a rate of 7.64.

The problem is that only residential properties which qualify for a homestead exemption are affected. Commercial and industrial properties pay whatever the “sticker price” millage is and those rates do compare directly. Same goes for tax categories such as personal property, motor vehicles, and intangible taxes, which are all linked to the property tax rate. In addition, any residential properties that don’t have a homestead exemption (e.g., houses that are being rented out to someone else) pay the sticker price as well.

In 2014, the county could charge those categories a millage of 7.64, but the city would be capped at 5.00, and so a lot of revenue estimates need to be reduced proportionally. You have to break apart the residential/homestead eligible properties from everything else. My new calculations specifically account for that.

The rest is simply plugging in the numbers already in the feasibility study and accounting for the lack of HOST credits on city taxes as well as the different homestead exemption offered by the city (the county’s homestead exemption is $10,000 flat, while the city proposes a $10,000 exemption plus the value of one mill). When you use the city’s, rather than the county’s, tax system — and the CVI study explicitly stated that they were using the assumption that the city would collect at the same rates as the county (i.e., 7.64) — the numbers aren’t as favorable to the city’s position.

Indeed, the CVI specifically said, as you quoted in your write-up: ““A county millage rate is not equivalent to a city millage rate in this context,” Baggett said. “A city millage rate does not come with the HOST county property tax rollback or the applicable county homestead exemptions. Thus a lower city millage rate will generate more revenue than DeKalb County’s millage rate. It compares apples to oranges.”

It seems strange then to say that, but then base assumptions about the amount of revenue that a city could bring in using the county’s tax structure. It seems more fair to apply the city’s proposed tax structure as written in its charter.

Russell is still a doctor and has a lot of learning under his belt. I will take the word of a doctor of the mind over a landscaper any day of the week.

Vote no against these cities. They will cost lots of jobs and be bad for us. Doesn’t everyone want to save places like pearidge and the ponderosa from becoming yuppie havens filled with mcmansions? The small houses outnumber the big houses and if all the small houses vote against this crap, then we will win. The people will win this battle. Those big houses bring nothing to the area but crime and people that don’t belong in this country. Keep dekalb strong and vote no.

Vote No!

Wow, you had me until you started talking about how the “big houses bring nothing but … people that don’t belong in this country”.

Cities Are Bad

Big houses=big pocketbooks and nice stuff. the criminals see this and target the nicer areas. Why paint a target on our neighborhoods with nicer stuff. It just invites more crime. Our old houses are not an attractive target for the thieves that look for these things. Immigrants like cities more than rural areas and unincorporated areas like Dekalb county. This is easily shown with census data and on places like city-data .com Chamblee, Doraville, Brookhaven, Gainesville, Norcross all have high immigrant populations. Unincorporated Dekalb does not. Might be lots of black people, but they kind of know the language anyway. Keep Dekalb strong and vote to keep our areas as they are. We don’t need any new cities or be a part of an existing city. If you want to vote to become a part of a city, vote for Winship, that is the best city idea. It keeps dekalb whole and prevents any more growth of cities. Does not cost any jobs and may actually create a few more for those that want an additional layer of government.

LaVista Hills YES

Uh it’s a little late to save Pea Ridge from McMansions, isn’t it? Last time I was there, must have been more than three dozen of same within a block of L’ville Hwy. Leafmore & Sagamore & Oak Grove are already under assault for quarter mill teardowns. That’s what DeKalb County is allowing.

Russell is a “doctor” – at his tender age, when he was a camp counselor as his only job from 1998-2002? Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Yeppers.

Russell Carleton

That job was so much fun! I miss it. It was my summer job during college.

Follow The Money

I thought Mary Kay quit to spend time with her family? I guess that just another of the lies we have been told by the Lakeside people. Remember when they told us they were not advocating in the beginning? What happened to Allen Venet? Did he get kicked to the side once they were done using him to get a bill through that is basically the original Lakeside map? There is nothing grass roots about this group. Grass roots movements don’t have fundraisers at $500 a pop for corporations frothing at the mouth the take our tax money for their profit. Grass roots would be able to get all the money they need from inside the area.

RAJ

Did someone not get the memo today? The chances of LaVista Hills getting a yes vote in November just increased in a dramatic fashion when the new DCSS Superintendent indicated we need a new High School in West Central DeKalb. Yes the School Board denied another Charter School….not a good fit for their “Charter System”, but a “New” High School sure solves a lot of problems for some undecided neighborhoods in district 5 & 6. My conservations at the meeting with a key DCSS administration official lead me to believe that it is possible Briarcliff High could reopen in the same location at the corner of Briarcliff & North Druid Hills Rd. The discussion about LaVista Hills revenue stream is not new…myself, DB, HL and TK have been talking about this ever since AV gave away the commercial in the original Briarcliff map in a” compromise” with MKW. I was pissed at the time but the political reality was that AV had to do this to get the bill passed in the legislature. So now we need more commercial to pay the bills(or not)but Fran says he will “tweak” the map in the 2016 Legislative Session if LVH passes and I have learned the hard way that anything is possible with Fran!

jo

Sad to see the attack on the messenger. Another reason this group is not ready to for civic leadership.

RAJ

Poorly informed messengers rarely carry accurate news!

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